Man thro pol o gy

Let’s start with what he’s not say­ing: your name. At least in the early stages of dat­ing, guys will re­fer to you only with ep­i­thets like El­e­va­tor Girl, Yoga Girl, or Face­book Girl. Af­ter that, ev­ery­thing is con­text-spe­cific. Here’s what he’s say­ing about

could get us mocked. “My friends made fun of me for how of­ten I men­tioned a girl,” says Manav, 23, a film edi­tor. “At that point, I flipped to ma­cho pos­tur­ing: ‘Oh, like you wouldn’t hook up with her?!’” It’s true: we still haven’t left ninth grade.

…HE’S NOT INTO THE SEX

Trick cat­e­gory! This never re­ally

hap­pens. Un­less a sex move lands us in the ER, we think ev­ery woman’s good in bed. Writer Chris, 33, evokes the clas­sic metaphor: “Sex is like pizza, and there’s no bad pizza. That’s be­cause men don’t need emo­tion to or­gasm; we just need fric­tion.”

…HE’S SMIT­TEN

“I think she’s The One,” says no guy, ever. Men don’t talk like that un­less they’re Ryan Gosling in a rom- com. If we have strong feel­ings for some­one, we’ll say al­most noth­ing. So if you bump into one of his friends who hasn’t heard much about you, it’s not ( nec­es­sar­ily) a deal breaker.

…IT’S JUST A HOOKUP

Brace yourself: I won’t sug­ar­coat this. “I’d say some­thing like, ‘She gives amaz­ing oral sex’,” says Jaideep, 32, a con­sul­tant. He quickly clarifies, “That’s meant as a com­pli­ment. I’d be ec­static if a girl said I was an oral-sex champ. But I wouldn’t say any­thing vul­gar if there was long-term po­ten­tial.”